Live Virtual Rocks & Rings with Special Guest Lisa Weagle

Early this month, the Rocks & Rings program tested out a new way of bringing curling into classrooms, and invited a very special guest to help out.

Olympic curler and World Curling Champion Lisa Weagle joined the Program Director of Rocks & Rings Abbie Darnley in our first ever live virtual Rocks & Rings class. Students learned all about curling and applied their newfound knowledge to curriculum-based lessons in language skills, geometry, and more. 

Students eagerly participated in the ‘draw your own curling rock’ activity led by their special guest instructor, who discovered that her art skills didn’t quite match up to her curling skills. Luckily, the students were very kind when critiquing her drawing!

An activity called “What Did Lisa Find?” helped students learn about geometric shapes using examples from the sport of curling. Our in-class Olympian found objects of specific shapes in her home to show the class, such as a candle (cylinder similar to a curling stone handle) and a Scotties tissue box (rectangular prism similar to a curling scoreboard). 

The students also got moving with some exercises related to curling, such as lunges mimicking the curling slide position and jumping jacks to understand the effort of sweeping. 

Kids jumped at the opportunity to ask Lisa questions at the end of the class such as: 

“Is curling a healthy thing to do?” (Yes! Like any sport, it is a great source of exercise.) 

“Is curling difficult?” (It is at first, but as long as you practice, you will always keep improving.)

“How long is a curling game?” (Games are typically 2-3 hours in length.) 

Thank you, Lisa, for donating your time to help get kids excited about the sport of curling while learning along the way! We are so excited to continue our development of the virtual Rocks & Rings program with the help of our generous partners at Curling Canada and Egg Farmers across the country. 

Stay tuned for more information on our Virtual classroom programs! In the meantime, check out our education portal to access free, curriculum-based resources.